IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2013 - 47

however, was needed to handle a high diversity of images
and computational power has made it possible.
In my opinion, a fabulous experience for a researcher in
image processing is to follow the birth of a new sensor. For
example, CNES, the French space agency, and NASA are
working on SWOT project, which is a future topographic
mission for surface water and ocean measurement. SWOT
will combine a Nadir looking altimeter with the KaRIN
instrument, a Ka-band synthetic aperture radar. ESA is
working on BIOMASS project to take measurements of forest biomass with P-band synthetic aperture polarimetric
radar. These projects are ambitious projects, relying on
teams of hundreds of people working over several years to
provide new measurements of the Earth. Image and data
processing are small parts of these huge programs but are
absolutely essential if one is to extract valuable information efficiently and reliably. New advances in image processing have produced more efficient tools to process these
data. But at the same time new data, very high resolution
images (in spatial, temporal and spectral dimensions), and
the combination of sensors have raised new challenges for
researchers. Once again using the example of non-local
approaches, their adaptation to interferometric and polari-

metric data has made it necessary to define a new framework based on statistical modeling and that can be used
for a much wider set of data.
But what about women in Geoscience and Remote Sensing? Well, the situation is quite paradoxical... On the one
hand, at a purely local level, things seem to be changing.
Among the 14 Ph.D. students I have supervised, 9 were
women. And during my career, I have not confronted
any constraints linked to my gender, except, perhaps, the
Unconscious Bias (my own unconscious bias?) that was
referred to in the previous issue of this magazine. But on
the other hand, when considered from a broader vantage
point, the percentage of women in scientific domains does
remain weak. Moreover, the distinction between boys and
girls in society seem to be on the increase-for clothes,
shoes, children's toys, etc., this undoubtedly heightened
by advertising. This tendency is without a doubt, much
more greater now than in my own childhood. One of the
main problems in scientific areas is the small percentage of
women working there, not their abilities. My final message
perhaps should be in favor of more Legos (even pink Legos)
and fewer Barbies (or at least Computer Engineer Barbies)
for little girls!
GRS

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2013